'McKay and Mrs Miller' and me

After a discussion with kerravonsen about why I hate a certain plot device, I decided I'd post here about the SGA episode 'McKay and Mrs Miller'. First of all, let me assure you that apart from said plot device and an instance of pervasive sexism, both of which I will address below the cut, I loved this ep. It was funny and just what I needed after a crap day at the office, making me laugh a lot. I highly recommend it to anyone who knows SGA, and I bet there's heaps of fiction based on it.

Most of what follows is about certain issues rather than the ep itself, but there are still a few spoilers.

The good

Most of the ep, but I'll single out a few things. Rodney and his equally brilliant sister added up to geeky sibling rivalry that was a joy to watch because, well, anyone who has brothers or sisters will recognise at least some of it. There was also some great dialogue.

SAM: He destroyed a solar system.JEANIE: Meredith! [smacks his arm]RODNEY: It was uninhabited!

RODNEY: Now, I don't want to scare you, but you need to know the stakes. We are at war.JEANIE: [looks at him suspiciously] Did you start it?

And then there was Ace Rod McKay, brave, funny, likeable, and everything Rodney wasn't--to his extreme annoyance.

The bad

Rodney's first name is Meredith. This was a huge source of humour, teasing, and derision from the others when they found out. Why? [sigh] Because it's usually a female name. And of course being female is an insult in itself--watch any episode of Scrubs. Men should not have girls' names because none in their right mind would want to be or even throw like one, now would they? Of course it's fine if women aspire to greatness by having male names like Sam (Carter) or Charlie (in Heroes) or even Nico (ahem).

There's a prayer that Jewish men say: "Thank you for not making me a woman." Women however only get to say, "Thank you for making me as I am." [stab] Yeah, understandable for 5000 years ago, but it seems to still apply to our society. Even though a lot of people know that intelligence counts more than being able to lift a heavy weapon, and that whether one's sexual organs are on the inside or outside is irrelevant to their worth, it's still an insult to imply a man is like a woman. When will this change?

The illogical

The only big spoiler here (so hit the back button now if you haven't seen this), but I loathe parallel universes. They outrage my sense of logic and, um, morality, though I doubt that's really the right word.

Logic (and this applies to Start Trek PUs--or mirror universes--too): This is a whole other universe, yet their parents still met, the same sperm fertilised the same egg, and the same child was born--sort of. They all have different personalities from the ones in our universe, but they still all went to Atlantis and have the same jobs there. There's even a Ronin apparently, but why would the other crew have happened upon him in a different universe where they did different things for different reasons? And even if that universe was caused by some random minor decision, why would younger characters still get born after that split?

Morality (not the right word, but hey): I just loathe the whole idea that there are infinite universes and many versions of me which are better (probably) or worse than this version. It makes the decision to live a good life meaningless because somewhere I've made every possible decision, good or bad. Is there another universe now because I had cheesy toast for breakfast instead of an egg? Everything in me hates the whole idea.

I might add that I like AUs because they're not parallel universes, but what might have happened in the series one if something was changed.

Still, that was a very entertaining ep and one of my SGA favourites now.